The original UCSF Center for AIDS Research (1988-1993) supported several activities in addition to the core facilities. The most important of these was the awarding of New Investigator Award. After the initial award, we redirected Planning and Evaluation funds to support state-of- the-art Workshops and Symposia. In the final year of the grant, with the limited remaining funds, CFAR funded a small Evolving Research Opportunity proposal. Two of the activities, support for new HIV investigators and support for evolving research opportunities in HIV research, form important components of the newly restricted CFAR. In retrospect, these activities proved to be very important factors in coordinating AIDS research through the CFAR mechanism and in encouraging productive collaborations at UCSF. The current CFAR application requests funds for New Investigator Awards, Pilot Project Awards and Evolving Research Opportunities. Budgetary restrictions preclude plans for Workshops and Symposia similar to those in the original CFAR. However, we have made preliminary plans for a seminar series that would bring basic research and clinical AIDS programs together. The goal of this seminar series is to generate new ideas, foster productive interactions and encourage collaborations between basic research investigators and clinicians across the Campus community. We plan to hold the seminars four times per year in the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology AIDS Research Center Conference Room. Topics currently under consideration include Therapy and Quantification of Viral Load.